A turning point for China

Originally published on June 03, 1989

Chinese-Americans around the United States reacted with anguish and anger Saturday to bloodshed in their homeland.

Tommy Wong, 65, who moved to Detroit from China in 1940, said he had been closely following the plight of the students in Beijing, hoping the students could force the Communists out of power.

"Since 1924, the Communists have not been good for our people. They should step down and let the students rule," he said. "They should step down, or they will be pulled down."

"Ninety percent of the Chinese don't like the Communists. If they keep doing battle (with the students), they will all support the students," Wong said. "I support the students, and write them letters to let them know."

Albert Feuerwerker, a historian and the former director of Center for Chinese Studies at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, said he thought the Chinese leadership had planned to wait out the student protesters.

"I'm surprised — it could have been frustration among some of these people to act as they did," he said. "The key issue was whether this was deliberate, or just happened as a result of clashes on a small scale."

Feuerwerker said the military's move on Tiananmen Square will have "enormous implications" on the reform movement in China.

And China's image will take a beating on the international scene, as foreign governments will likely come out in opposition to the violence, he added.

Students and residents of Beijing gather in Tiananmen Square around a "Statue of Liberty" replica created by students from an art institute to promote the pro-democracy protest against the Chinese government May 30, 1989.(Photo: Toshio Sakai, AFP/Getty Images)

"It is a very bad event," he said. "I don't know what the outcome will be, but I'm quite worried about it. China will never be the same again, that is Lisa Chow, 21, who was born in the United States but whose parents are from Hong Kong, said she was surprised at the news of the crackdown.

"I think the government should give in to some demands. I think they could work something out," she said.

She said she sympathizes with the Chinese people because they don't live in a democracy, but she doesn't think the use of troops will stop the democratic movement.

Foo Hung, who also was born in the United States of Chinese parents, said he thought the violence "was very sad. I don't know what I expected, but I didn't expect this."

He said he thinks it may kill the democratic movement. "I think it might scare them," he said of the student demonstrators.

Da'an Pan hasn't lived in China for almost two years, but he takes the government's assault on protesting students in Beijing personally.

"We are angry! We are indignant!" said the 39-year-old Pan, who is a graduate student at the University of Rochester in New York.

The students, he said, merely want democratic reform - and have sought it non-violently.

Other members of the Rochester-area Chinese and Chinese-American community Saturday shared a sense of outrage and expressed solidarity with the students.

"I am proud of the students. They brought out what the people sought. All of China wants democracy," said Ken Tang, 30, of Gates, whose parents were born in China.

A student hunger striker from Beijing University takes part in a huge demonstration at Tiananmen Square on May 14, 1989. Students started a hunger strike as part of mass pro-democracy protests against the Chinese government in Beijing.(Photo: Catherine Henriette, AFP/Getty Images)

"The whole world was keeping watch on the students. They still shot the people."

But many said the students will ultimately prevail.

"In the short run, the government seems to be winning. In the long run, it will lose. The people won't be scared by the crackdown," said Jong Way, 45, who was born in Taiwan.

Richard Chu, 57, president of the Rochester Chinese Association, said the government's action was a sign of weakness.

"I think the Chinese authorities right now are coming to the end of their rope. They just don't know what to do. Using force is a criminal action against the Chinese people. History will condemn the authorities who gave the order to murder the students."

Dr. Satina Chang, who was born of Chinese parents in Malaysia, said, "There is a saying in China that if you don't have gray hair they won't listen to you." Real change in China, Chang said, depends on how long it takes for younger, more moderate party leaders to move into important positions.

Zhong Chen, 31, a graduate of Beijing Medical College, also does not think the crackdown means an end to the democracy movement in China.

"Some students will be sent to prison, some will go back to school, but the thought of freedom and democracy will be strong. They will still hope they can get what they want in the future some day," Chen said.

Reaction was across the country was similar, and at times, more emotional.

About 300 protesters gathered at the Chinese consulate in San Francisco. Chinese and Chinese-Americans also took their fear and anger to the streets in Los Angeles, New Orleans and Houston. In Connecticut, the state House held a silent tribute.

Reporting by Gannett News Service

Chinese people gather around a replica of the Statue of Liberty on June 2, 1989, in Tiananmen Square demanding democracy despite martial law in Beijing.

(Photo: Catherine Henriette, AFP/Getty Images)

Beijing reels from violence

Originally published on June 4, 1989

When Beijing's Tiananmen Square turned into a weekend war zone, U.S. television was caught up in the conflict.

By Sunday - after hours without live footage for U.S. viewers - the networks arranged to get pictures out of China via Asian satellite outlets. ABC broke in twice with half-hour updates.

ABC's Peter Jennings flew back from London on the Concorde Sunday morning to anchor a special, Worlds In Crisis, Sunday night examining developments in China and in Iran, rocked by the Ayatollah Khomeini's death.

A sanitation worker cleans Tiananmen Square, which was occupied by student protesters in Beijing, on May 26, 1989.(Photo: Jeff Widener, AP)

All network morning shows scrapped their formats late Sunday and planned to devote nearly all of today's shows to the news from China and Iran.

"It's like having a front seat on the French Revolution," said Laurence Tisch, head of CBS Inc. "We have 70 people in China for this."

It wasn't that easy. CBS correspondent Richard Roth and cameraman Derek Williams - taken into custody Saturday at the height of the violence - were released Sunday after David Burke, president of CBS News, wrote to Secretary of State James Baker.

Rather announced the Roth release Sunday, then interviewed him.

At NBC, there was anxiety when the foreign desk lost touch with a crew for five hours. The crew's cellular phones had gone out.

Time and Newsweek switched to cover stories on China as their midnight Saturday deadlines neared.

ABC and CNN reported no problems with their correspondents, and guests at the Beijing Hilton continued receiving CNN in their rooms.

But the journalists in the square working the story were anxious and afraid.

"A lot of fear is coming through the phone lines," says Joseph Angotti, NBC's senior vice president for news.

Reporting by Monica Collins

Bicycle commuters pass through a tunnel June 6, 1989, as military tanks take position on an overpass in Beijing, two days after the Tiananmen Square massacre.

By dawn, the sound of machine gun fire had stopped. Broken and burning vehicles littered the roadways around Tiananmen Square, occupied for weeks by Chinese students seeking government reforms.

But in mid-afternoon, a fog rolled into the city, sporadic gunfire could be heard again and ambulance sirens filled the air.

An Australian tourist reported six tanks burning on the main east-west road through Beijing. People were pulling bodies of soldiers from the tanks, he said.

A Chinese student leader reads a list of demands to students staging a sit-in April 18, 1989, in front of Beijing's Great Hall of the People.(Photo: Kathy Wilhelm, AP)

Further on, at the Zhongnanhai complex where China's leaders live, a line of tanks was positioned protectively across the road, the tourist said.

Thousands of people were in the street in front of the tanks, and helicopters buzzed the boulevard overhead. As he made his way through the debris in the streets, the Australian said he saw soldiers charging along the sidewalks as a couple of tanks moved forward toward the crowd.

People fled. And then the tanks started circling as a few students began throwing Molotov cocktails.

One student caught himself on fire, and his friends tried to put out the flames. The soldiers returned to their positions outside their leaders' compound. People crept closer again, appearing ready to provoke yet another lunge by the military, the tourist said.

A dead soldier stripped naked was hanging from the side of a burned-out bus nearby, the Australian said.

At a Beijing hotel where foreign tourists and journalists are staying, reports from the streets are plentiful. One Swiss tourist said he saw a Chinese officer shoot a woman and a child to death. A crowd then rushed the officer, took his gun, shot him and threw him over an overpass, the tourist said.

Such scenes of violence were commonplace Saturday evening and Sunday morning.

An American tourist who visited Tiananmen Square reported seeing through his binoculars 30 to 40 bodies lying motionless on the pavement.

He said about 50 tanks and 60 trucks loaded with troops carrying machine guns had rumbled toward the square. He said a Chinese student told him that tanks rolled over students as they tried to run away.

Thousands of soldiers smashed through buses and other barricades throughout Beijing that had been erected by residents to protect the students at Tiananmen. The troops regularly sprayed machine-gun fire as they went. Bursts of gunfire could be heard throughout the night as the army tried to consolidate control over a capital city in chaos.

Pitched battles occurred in the central part of the city, with crowds throwing rocks and bottles at troops, who responded by marching away, firing their guns in the air or shooting at the people. Some citizens also threw Molotov cocktails, setting army vehicles afire.

Another American tourist, who followed 5,000 troops as they moved toward Tiananmen Square, said they fired over the heads of people gathered in the street. The soldiers lowered their aim when onlookers refused to run.

At one point, crowds doused the roads with gasoline ahead of the troops and set the gasoline afire. Soldiers waited for the flames to die down and pressed on, the tourist said.

A soldier stands guard in front of People's Liberation Army tanks at Tiananmen Square on June 9, 1989, after a crackdown June 4 in Beijing.(Photo: Catherine Henriette, AFP/Getty Images)

Gunfire from the troops scattered the street crowds, leaving some dead. After the soldiers passed, the crowds pressed in behind as the marching columns made their way toward Tiananmen.

The American said he believes he saw three people killed almost instantly: Two men were shot in the chest, and a woman was shot in the neck. Her daughter wailed "Momma, Momma" as the troops marched by.

Police and soldiers confiscated film from everyone who entered a nearby hotel and roughed up several journalists, the American said. A French journalist was beaten when he refused to hand over his film.

At least one major advance was made from the west along the city's main boulevard toward Tiananmen Square.

People who live near a major intersection about a mile from Tiananmen said troops smashed through two buses that residents had placed there. Soldiers sprayed gunfire indiscriminately at the surrounding crowds.

Evidence of the violent march abounded. Army jeeps and buses littered the road, some still ablaze. Rocks were strewn everywhere. Bullet holes were visible in the sides of buses and in bus-stop windows for blocks.

Near the intersection where the most fierce fighting occurred, pools of blood were encircled by rocks arranged by crowds to mark the fate of their fallen friends.

Reporting by a Gannett News Service journalist whose name was not disclosed for fear of expulsion.